Virginia Tech's Mac Pro supercomputer to crack 29 teraflops
A switch to newer Intel-based Apple Mac Pro workstations for an upcoming rekindling of Virginia Tech's supercomputer efforts will more than double the performance to as much as 29 teraflops and will once again put a Mac cluster in the limelight -- this time, placing it among the top 100 supercomputers in the world.
When it's completed in the next several weeks, the new project discussed with Ars Technica will rely on 324 eight-core, 2.8GHz Mac Pro towers to achieve the result, joining them across a quad-speed InfiniBand link that offers three times as much room for network traffic as the original model, dubbed System X.
Although the school is using just a third of the computers found in the earlier cluster, which at its peak has used 1,150 Xserve G5s, the fresh cluster will have a total of 2,592 cores that individually operate faster than each of the 2,200 PowerPC chips found in the older rackmount computers. The old system at most processed 12.25 teraflops and itself eclipsed the original System X, based on 1,100 PowerMac G5s.
The performance of the new Xeon-based cluster at its theoretical peak of 29 teraflops would be enough to take 65th place in the Top500 supercomputer charts from June, outpacing famous supercomputer designers such as Cray and SGI as well as scientific institutions that include CERN in Switzerland and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US.
Real-world performance is likely to dip due to performance overhead, but record-setting isn't its only reason for being, according to Dr. Srinidhi Varadarajan, director of Virginia Tech's Center for High-end Computing Systems. Instead, the Mac Pro edition will sit aside System X and will be dedicated to researching power-efficient software as well as shared-memory computing.
Even if it doesn't smash performance barriers, the new, unnamed cluster will still serve as an example of how technology has advanced both for Apple and the industry at large. While the sheer amount of power and heat from the Xserve group requires a specialized liquid-air cooling in an equally special building, the lesser power demands of the Xeons and their looser spacing in a tower format means that the institution can house the new cluster in a conventional room.
And it may also serve to humble Apple's rivals in the workstation space, according to Dr. Varadarajan. Since the Mac Pro includes so many sensors to monitor heat and power levels, it's considered better than many workstations for research where both measurements are critical to the tasks at hand. The Macs are likewise said to be fundamentally less expensive for the same level of performance than similar systems from Apple's competitors.
"The Mac Pros are highly competitive even against building a white box off the cheapest prices," the researcher notes.
When it's completed in the next several weeks, the new project discussed with Ars Technica will rely on 324 eight-core, 2.8GHz Mac Pro towers to achieve the result, joining them across a quad-speed InfiniBand link that offers three times as much room for network traffic as the original model, dubbed System X.
Although the school is using just a third of the computers found in the earlier cluster, which at its peak has used 1,150 Xserve G5s, the fresh cluster will have a total of 2,592 cores that individually operate faster than each of the 2,200 PowerPC chips found in the older rackmount computers. The old system at most processed 12.25 teraflops and itself eclipsed the original System X, based on 1,100 PowerMac G5s.
The performance of the new Xeon-based cluster at its theoretical peak of 29 teraflops would be enough to take 65th place in the Top500 supercomputer charts from June, outpacing famous supercomputer designers such as Cray and SGI as well as scientific institutions that include CERN in Switzerland and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US.
Real-world performance is likely to dip due to performance overhead, but record-setting isn't its only reason for being, according to Dr. Srinidhi Varadarajan, director of Virginia Tech's Center for High-end Computing Systems. Instead, the Mac Pro edition will sit aside System X and will be dedicated to researching power-efficient software as well as shared-memory computing.
Even if it doesn't smash performance barriers, the new, unnamed cluster will still serve as an example of how technology has advanced both for Apple and the industry at large. While the sheer amount of power and heat from the Xserve group requires a specialized liquid-air cooling in an equally special building, the lesser power demands of the Xeons and their looser spacing in a tower format means that the institution can house the new cluster in a conventional room.
And it may also serve to humble Apple's rivals in the workstation space, according to Dr. Varadarajan. Since the Mac Pro includes so many sensors to monitor heat and power levels, it's considered better than many workstations for research where both measurements are critical to the tasks at hand. The Macs are likewise said to be fundamentally less expensive for the same level of performance than similar systems from Apple's competitors.
"The Mac Pros are highly competitive even against building a white box off the cheapest prices," the researcher notes.
Comments
The article does not mention what OS is being used, OS 10.5, Win XP 64-bit, Linux or all three at once. Anyone know?
Has any "Top 500" computer ever run Windows???
The only Supercomputer I ever "operated" was back in '63. It had a super-fast punch-card feeder but the console's vacuum tubes took 5-7 minutes to warm-up.
IBM 704, TI99-4A, Mac 128k and 9 other mac's since.
http://www.top500.org/stats/list/31/os
Yes, windows have 5 on the list.
The IBM 704 fell off the list almost 50 years ago.
Has any "Top 500" computer ever run Windows???
I would think the problem would be it would it would get viruses faster than Norton could deal with
up some kind of heat exchanger and creating electricity from all the
generated heat?
I need this just for my porn!
A Mac Pro "quickie"?
BTW, of he 5 MS OS's in the Top 500 none are XP or Vista. So the ratio is 100 to 1. The 30 to 1 in PC's OS's does not look so bad, it shouldn't take too long to get to 15-15 (in the US about 2013).
Also note: E=MC2
Mac 128k (and a 4 year-old company Sprint cell phone). My wife emailed me and said the bank transfer for the $199 must be lost since her bank uses Vista.
BTW, of he 5 MS OS's in the Top 500 none are XP or Vista.
It is still Windows. Even if it's a modified version of what's available at the store. Windows Server 2003 is basically a server version of XP, kind of no-frills. I wouldn't be surprised if that HPC 2008 is based on Vista but without so much of the consumer crap.
The college I went to had a similar requirement, we engineering students had to buy a certain manufacturer and model number for a "slide-rule". Then calculators came a-long before computers. I didn't pass that college up because of the extra 20 bucks for the slide-rule. Then 1984 came along, I was thinking about going back to school but idea of a grandpa toting a computer to class with a MOUSE was unheard of. They only accepted green screens and a key-board with arrows.
A Mac Pro "quickie"?
or Mac Pro mini
Seriously, I hope this is the product transition we see in the fall...
Though, it would be cool, but is it in mATX form? Could we swap out our processors, or better yet, HDs, Disk Drives, and Graphics Cards (without voiding warranty)? That would make it the Mac Pro mini we all want! Knowing Apple... they'd stay away from the ATX form factor. As long as the thing is upgradable, I don't think any of us would care!
or Mac Pro mini
Seriously, I hope this is the product transition we see in the fall...
Much more so when you consider that in 2004 they migrated System X away from 1,100 dual 2GHz PowerMac G5 towers to 1,100 dual Xserve G5's. Even though the computing power was about the same, they said it was worth replacing all 1,100 machines (less than a year after installing them) because the Xserves would use less power and take 1/3 the space.
This time around, identically configured Xeon Xserves are available from the start, yet they decided to go with the towers instead! I wonder if it would have made a difference if Apple still offered an Xserve cluster node.
I understand that Xserves have much higher power density, due to their smaller volume. Normally, this is considered highly desirable in a data center, but you could always reduce the overall density by spreading the machines out more. I would have also thought the Lights Out Management (and all the extra sensors that it supports) would be a big plus (but perhaps doesn't play with InfiniBand). But if they really need the extra PCI Express slot…
Cheers AP
It is still Windows. Even if it's a modified version of what's available at the store. Windows Server 2003 is basically a server version of XP, kind of no-frills. I wouldn't be surprised if that HPC 2008 is based on Vista but without so much of the consumer crap.
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 and Windows HPC 2008. I can't imagine what the licensing fees to run one of those on a supercomputer are. But I guess the places that run those clusters don't care.